by Martha Wells
“It’s all teachers in these bowers,” Petal said, pointing him to one of the dooways. It had a little set of stairs leading up to a small room. “There’s an extra bed up there. No one will bother you.” He hesitated. Smiling, she gave him a little push. “Go on. You need to rest.”
Moon went up the stairs to the little room at the top. He had thought it would be too closed-in for comfort, but it was only partially walled off, with a large gap between the tops of the blocky walls and the ceiling. It took him a moment to realize the big straw basket thing suspended in the middle of it was the bed.
It was curved, made of woven reeds, and hung from a heavy wooden beam placed across the walls. Wide enough for at least four people, it was stuffed with a random collection of blankets and cushions. A few more tightly-woven storage baskets were stacked around. Moon lifted the lids and saw they held soft folded cloth, packed with sweet herbs. He wondered if they traded it to anybody. There were plenty of places where bolts of good strong cloth would be highly-prized items.
By that point, he could hear that Petal had left the room below, and he went back down to do a little exploring. A few other people remained, all of them occupied with chores; no one paid much attention to him. He prowled around the long central hall to find other ways in and out, exploring the air shafts, making certain he could get out in a hurry if he had to. He went up a stairway, finding three levels of similar halls above this one, all of which seemed to be occupied by Arbora. It was all open, nearly indefensible. When the Fell came, the stone walls might keep out the major kethel, but the minor dakti would come through here in swarms, killing everything in their path.
When Moon returned to his room or bower or whatever it was called, he faced the swaying basket bed, regarding it with weary doubt. He had slept on the ground, on rocks, and occasionally hanging upside down by his tail from a tree branch, so he supposed he could manage this. At least the basket was more than long enough for him; he had spent time in the enclaves of short-statured groundling races where all the beds were a pace or two shorter than he was.
He shifted to use his claws to climb the wall, belly-flopped into the basket, and shifted back. It took his weight, only swaying a little, and he sprawled in relief.
Whether it was the soft cushions or the fact that the basket was suspended in the air through no effort of his own, it was the most comfortable bed he had ever been in.
He slept soundly, only cracking an eyelid suspiciously when he heard quiet footsteps on the stairs. But it was only Petal, who left a bundle of clothing on the top step and retreated.
He woke sometime later, aware that somewhere past the heavy stone walls, the sun had set. His stomach was empty again, and he realized he had no idea if they had an evening meal here. Add one more to the long list of things he still don’t know.
With a groan, he climbed out of the bed and dropped to the floor. He picked up the bundle of clothes Petal had left, still debating whether or not to accept them. The fabric was dyed dark, the weaving of the shirt so fine it caught on the callous on his fingers. The pants were of a tougher and probably more durable material. A draft came up the open stair raising a chill on his groundling skin and reminding him it would be cooler here, especially at night; he decided not to be stupid.
He pulled on the shirt and pants, leaving the robe Petal had loaned him on the basket next to the bundle of his old clothes. He started to go down the steps, but hesitated in the doorway.
The scent in the air was different than it had been earlier. He couldn’t hear any casual movement, but instinct told him someone waited silently nearby, maybe more than one someone. The others who lived in this hall would be talking or sleeping or doing some task, not just watching. Stalking, Moon thought, putting a name to that change in the air. It might be the two soldiers again, back for another try at him. If he was going to be attacked, he might as well get it over with.
He went down the steps and into the apparently empty hall. To draw them out, he stopped at the pool and sat on his heels to scoop up a handful of water and drink.
Two male warriors dropped out of the shadows in the high ceiling and landed lightly on the floor not ten paces away. Moon didn’t twitch, didn’t glance up at them.
One said, “Solitary.” His voice had the extra resonance of his shifted form, rough and threatening.
Moon slid a look at him, slow and deliberate. “That’s not my name.” The first warrior was a vivid green, with a blue tone under his scales. The other was copper with a gold tone. Both were big, at least as tall and as broad as Moon’s shifted form.
The green one tilted his head with predatory intent. “I’m River and that’s Drift. We don’t care what your name is.”
Moon shook the water off his hand and pushed to his feet, making the movement casual and easy, as if they were no more threatening than a couple of noisy groundling kids. “How long were you waiting to tell me that?” He didn’t shift; they wanted a fight, and he wanted to make them work for it.
River didn’t make the mistake of trying to answer the question. He gave an amused growl. “You thought no one would notice you hiding down here with the Arbora?”
“No. I thought even you two could find me.” There was a certain freedom in not having to be unobtrusive; Moon could be as big an ass as he wanted to these two.
Drift, the copper warrior, bared his fangs in a derisive grin. “Oh, we found you. And this court doesn’t need a consort so badly that we have to take in a crazy solitary.”
Moon folded his arms, another sign he didn’t consider them a threat. “I heard you did, since Star Aster wouldn’t bother to piss on you.”
That one hit the target. Drift hissed, and River snarled, “If you want to leave here alive, then you leave tonight.”
Moon moved forward, shifting in mid-step and closing the distance between them in a sudden blur of motion. The next instant he was barely a hand span away, wings half-extended and spines flared. “Make me leave.”
Drift jerked back, but River didn’t flinch. His spines flared, but voices from the far end of the hall interrupted. A group of men and women were coming in through the passage, some of them in Arbora form. One of them said, loud enough to carry, “What are River and Drift doing here? I thought they were too good for us.”
In a hushed tone, someone else said, “And who’s that?”
Drift fell back another step. “River. Not in front of them.”
Moon didn’t move. River hissed again, low and furious, then he leapt up the nearest partition. Drift was barely a pace behind him, and they both vanished into the darkness of the ceiling near the air shafts. The Arbora watched them go, with a babble of hushed comment.
Feeling suddenly far too conspicuous, Moon shifted back to groundling and turned away. He didn’t really have anywhere else to go, so he went to the doorway on this end of the hall, descending the steps toward the teachers’ court.
He was at the bend of the stairs when he heard Stone’s voice. On impulse, he stopped just out of sight of the room below. He couldn’t see anything except glowing moss crammed into a niche on the opposite wall, but he could hear a dozen or so people, breathing, stirring uneasily.
He heard Stone say, “I’m telling you, I want to leave here.”
Sounding startled, someone said, “But you just got back.”
There was grim exasperation in Stone’s voice. “I meant the colony. Is there any one of you who won’t admit that there’s something wrong here? That there has been for the past forty turns? We’ve had dead clutches, fewer births —”
“But that just happens—” another voice protested.
“That doesn’t just happen,” Stone snapped. “You’re all too young to remember how it should be. We’re a strong court with good bloodlines. We should have as many Aeriat as we have Arbora, and enough consorts that each sister queen could take three or four and go off to build her own court. That’s what they’re doing at Star Aster. Why do you think none of them would come with me
?”
Someone said, “If their mentors told them this place was ill-omened, they were—”
“Pearl’s thinking of treating with the Fell,” Chime pointed out, his voice dry. “I’d call that ill-omened.”
Flower spoke, and she just sounded tired. “Stone, I’ve looked and looked. All the mentors have looked, alone and in concert. We can’t find anything wrong, no matter what we try.”
There was a pause, and Stone prompted, “And?”
“And I think it means that whatever it is… is hidden very carefully,” she admitted.
There was an uneasy murmur from the others. Petal said, “There’s nothing wrong with your augury; we know that.”
A new voice, male, low and rough, said, “Speaking for the soldiers, I’m not against leaving. Whether it’s some kind of bad omen working here or not, this place hasn’t been good for us for a long time. But what is Pearl going to say?”
“The fact that we’re having this talk without her says a lot, doesn’t it?” Chime said uneasily.
Stone didn’t seem disturbed by the objection. “I’ll handle Pearl.”
Flower sighed. “I know you want her to give way to Jade. I do, too. But Jade has to take that responsibility for herself. You can’t do it for her.”
There was another uncomfortable pause. The man who had said he spoke for the soldiers broke it with, “I think we all agree that if Jade takes the court, it would be a good thing. But not with a consort we don’t know.”
There was an edge to Stone’s voice. “What exactly did you think I was going to Star Aster for, Knell?”
Knell replied, “He’s not from Star Aster. He’s a wild solitary you picked up along the way.”
Petal’s voice was pointed. “If he was wild, he wouldn’t have been living with groundlings; he would have been eating them—”
“How do we know he wasn’t?” Knell said. “Besides, living with groundlings isn’t exactly a point in his favor either—”
Flower cut him off sharply. “Knell, the mentors and teachers in this room have spoken to him. You haven’t. You may want to reserve your opinion until you have something to base it on.”
There was another glum pause. Then Chime said, “And how do you know Pearl isn’t going to want him herself? I mean, he’s beautiful, and if she takes a new consort—”
Stone interrupted, “She’s three times his age, and she’s not so lost to sense that she’d try to take a young consort against his will.”
Flower cleared her throat suddenly. “And he’s here.”
She must have caught Moon’s scent. He didn’t hesitate, pushing away from the wall and taking the last few steps down into the room. The space was more crowded than he had realized, with people seated all around on the floor, standing in the other doorways. All of them stared, flustered by his sudden appearance; for most of them, this would be their first look at the feral solitary. Moon ignored it all to face Stone. “Something you forgot to tell me?”
His voice came out more choked than he had intended, and his jaw was so tight it almost hurt to talk. It was ridiculous to feel this way; Stone didn’t owe him anything. Moon had been the one in debt, and helping Stone against the Fell in Sky Copper had made them even.
Stone watched him a long moment. His blue eyes, clear and clouded, were as unreadable as ever. He said, “We need to talk in private.”
There was a confused stir as some of their audience took that as a dismissal, but Stone turned and walked outside to the atrium. Moon went after him, stepping out of the light of the glow-moss into the dark garden space and the heavy scent of wet earth and recent rain. His shoulders twitched in relief; it was enough for the moment just to be out of reach of all those unfriendly and curious eyes.
Stone didn’t speak; he just shifted and jumped straight up and climbed the side of the building, a great dark shape, big wings half-furled and tail lashing.
Moon waited until Stone leapt off the building into the air. He shifted and followed, climbing up until he could drop off a ledge and catch the breeze with his wings. The crescent moon was mostly shrouded by clouds, but he could see Stone had already crossed the dark stretch of the river and the terraced fields. Stone landed on one of the higher hills, treeless and unoccupied by anything except a few flat rocks arranged in a rough circle. Moon banked around and landed a careful distance away, well out of the reach of a sudden lunge.
Stone shifted back to groundling, then sat down on one of the rocks, facing toward the dark shape of the colony. He moved slowly, like his body ached, like old groundlings with bad joints moved.
Moon hesitated then shifted, too. The wind was cool enough to make him glad he had accepted the new clothes. He could scent other Raksura in the air, probably sentries, but none were close. Stone didn’t move, and after a moment Moon walked up through the wet grass to stand near him.
The pyramid was studded with light from doorways, openings, and air shafts, shining down to reflect off the dark surface of the river. In the night the whole structure looked vulnerable—too open, indefensible.
Up here, the only sound was the wind moving through leaves. Into the quiet, Stone said, “I meant to tell you at Sky Copper, but I changed my mind. If you knew, you might not have come here with me. And I needed you to come here with me.”
Moon felt a little of the tension go out of his back. At least Stone wasn’t trying to pretend it had been some kind of mistake and not a deliberate omission. Moon folded his arms, looking down the dark river. His own thoughts weren’t so easy to sort out.
Becoming one of the warriors who defended the colony from Fell and other threats was one thing, but this… was something else. And he hadn’t forgotten that a queen’s power wasn’t just theoretical; a queen could keep him from shifting, keep him grounded, as long as he was close to her. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say, and was a little surprised when it was, “The last woman I was with poisoned me so her people could drag me off to be killed by giant vargits.”
It was hard to tell in the dark, but Stone seemed to take that in thoughtfully.
He shrugged. “Most groundlings think consorts look like Fell.”
Moon’s grimace was bitter. “I’d been with her for months. She said she wanted a baby. My baby.”
“Oh.” Stone apparently felt he couldn’t argue with that. “Are you going to leave?”
Moon took a sharp breath, swallowing back the first impulsive reply. He paced away, looking down on the terraced fields, the plants moving gently in the breeze, the moonlight catching a glint of water between the rows. It would help if he knew what he wanted. “What, are you saying you wouldn’t keep me here?”
Stone snorted. His voice dry, he said, “We both know you can get away from me if you put your mind to it.” He sat up straight and stretched extravagantly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Even if I was that stupid, the Arbora wouldn’t stand for it, especially the mentors. Besides, the court doesn’t need a prisoner, it needs consorts.”
From what Moon had seen, the court apparently differed in that opinion and didn’t feel it needed either. Moon said, “I’ve already been told to leave.”
“By a warrior called River?”
Moon rolled his shoulders and didn’t answer, staring stubbornly at the dark fields. Stone’s occasional ability to read minds was only one of his annoying qualities.
“That was a guess,” Stone said. “I told you about royal clutches. Sometimes they’re all male, and the fledglings who don’t develop into consorts become ordinary warriors. Amber was Pearl’s sister queen, and River came from one of her royal clutches.” He added, with a trace of acid, “I don’t solicit River’s opinion, no matter how much he thinks I ought to.”
That might be true, but it didn’t change anything. River wasn’t the only one who wanted Moon gone.
Moon realized he could hear sound rising from across the river, a chorus of notes, high and low, blending in harmony and mingled with the wind and the gentle rush of the river. He w
ent still, staring toward the colony, the breath catching in his throat. He couldn’t make out words, but the sound seemed to gather in his body, resonating off his bones, as if it were playing him like an instrument.
Stone lifted his head, listening. “They’re singing, Arbora to Aeriat, and back again.” A single voice, high and pure, lifted to weave through the others, then died away. Moon felt sweat break out all over his body, prickling on his skin in the cool air. Apparently unaffected, Stone said, “That was Jade. Pearl never sings anymore.”
Moon turned half away, suppressing the urge to shiver and twitch. The singing felt… alien, and he resented the way it seemed to pull at him. It could pull all it wanted; whatever that was, he wasn’t a part of it.
He wondered just how close the Cordans’ camp had been to the Star Aster Court, how close he had been to finding other Raksura. Or how close they had been to finding him. Not that that would have left him any better off than he was now. It sounded as though Star Aster had no need for extra consorts; having seen the prevailing opinion of feral solitaries here, he knew they would have driven him off. He spoke the thought that had become increasingly obvious all day long, with every interaction he had had. “I don’t belong here.” Maybe if he had been younger, there would have been a chance, but not now.
Stone made a derisive noise. “You’re afraid you don’t belong here. There’s a difference.”
Moon seethed inwardly but held his temper, knowing it would give Stone a victory if he lost it. “I’ve been walking into new places all my life. I know when I don’t belong.”
Stone sounded wry. “You’ve been here half a day, and for most of that you were asleep.”
Moon said sourly, “I like to make quick decisions.”
Stone pushed to his feet with a groan, looking across at the pyramid. If Flower was right, Stone had been with Pearl all afternoon trying to convince her of things she apparently didn’t want to hear. “All I’m going to ask is that you stay until I convince Pearl to give way. I want the court to leave this colony and go back to the west, to the home forest. They won’t even consider it unless we have a consort—at least a prospective consort—for Jade. Once we have a secure colony, we’ll be in a better position to get a consort to come over from another court.” He added, his voice grim, “It won’t take long. Things will come to a head soon.”